Laundry detergent products can be found on the market to date in various forms, such as solid granular compositions and tablets, or liquid compositions. This gives the consumer a choice of detergent products they can use.
Some detergent ingredients currently used by the laundry industry, are preferably manufactured and processed in liquid form. These liquid ingredients are difficult or costly to include in a solid detergent composition. Also, certain ingredients are preferably transported and supplied to detergent manufacturers in a liquid form and require additional, and sometimes costly, process steps to enable them to be included in a solid detergent composition. An example of these detergent ingredients are surfactants, especially nonionic surfactants which are typically liquid at room temperature or are typically transported and supplied to detergent manufacturers in liquid form.
Current methods of incorporating liquid ingredients into solid detergent compositions include absorbing the liquid ingredient onto a solid carrier, for example by mixing, agglomeration or spray-on techniques. Typically, solid detergent compositions comprise only low amounts of these liquid detergent ingredients due to the difficulty and expense of incorporating these liquid ingredients into a solid detergent.
However, it is desirable to include higher levels of liquid ingredients such as certain surfactant or solutions thereof in a detergent composition with a substantial amount of solid detergent ingredients. It is also desirable to be able to incorporate detergent ingredients that are typically transported and supplied in liquid form in a detergent composition comprising a substantial amount of solid detergent ingredients without the need for extra costly and difficult processing steps.
The inventors have found that by using a multi-compartment water-soluble pouch comprising at least two compartments, liquid detergent ingredients such as surfactants can be included in a detergent composition comprising other solid detergent ingredients, without the need for difficult, costly manufacturing and processing steps to incorporate said liquid ingredient as a solid in the solid detergent. The liquid detergent ingredients are comprised by one compartment of a multi-compartment pouch whilst the solid detergent ingredients are comprised by a second compartment.